Apocalypse Revealed (Coulsons) n. 818

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818. [verse 10] 'And I fell down before his feet to adore him, and he said unto me, See thou, do it not, I am thy fellow-servant and of thy brothers having the testimony of Jesus; adore God' signifies that the angels of heaven are not to be adored and invoked because nothing Divine belongs to them, but that they are associated with men as brothers with brothers with those who worship the Lord, and thus that in company with them the Only Lord is to be adored. By 'I fell down at his feet to adore him and he said unto me, See thou, do it not; adore God' is signified that no angel of heaven whatever is to be adored and invoked but the Only Lord. By 'I am thy fellow-servant and of thy brothers' is signified that nothing Divine belongs to an angel, but that he is associated with a man as brother with brother. By 'to have the testimony of Jesus' is signified that he is in like manner in a conjunction with the Lord through the acknowledgment of the Divine in His Human and through a life in accordance with His precepts. That this is signified by 'to have the testimony of Jesus' will be seen in the following paragraph. The reason why the angels are not superior to men but are equal to them, and that therefore they are equally the Lord's servants as men are, is because all the angels have been men born in the world, and none of them directly created, as can be established out of the things that have been written and demonstrated in the work concerning HEAVEN AND HELL published at London, 1758. They indeed excel men in wisdom, but for the reason that they are in a spiritual state and consequently in the light of heaven, and not in a natural state and thus in the light of the world as are the men of the earth. But in so far as any angel excels in wisdom, so far he acknowledges that he is not above men, but similar to them. On which account also there is not any conjunction of men with angels but there is association with them. Conjunction is given with the Only Lord. But how a conjunction with the Lord is effected, and the association with the angels by means of the Word, may be seen in THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTIRE (n. 62-69).


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